We have been selling paintings by Chip Chadbourn for a number of years. Recently, we were contacted about a wonderful 1965 painting titled “Umpires” which portrays famed American League baseball umpire Nestor Chylak and a colleague at Yankee Stadium. This contact led to an exploration of a series of 10 paintings which Philip Morris commissioned Chip Chadbourn to paint in 1964. The paintings covered the following major CBS television shows that were being sponsored by Philip Morris along with one portrait of celebrity columnist, Hedda Hopper:
1. Baseball Game of the Week – “Umpires”
2. CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite – portrait of Walter Cronkite
3. The Jackie Gleason Show – portrait of Jackie Gleason
4. Perry Mason – portrait of Raymond Burr as Perry Mason
5. The Red Skelton Show – portrait of Red Skelton as “Freddie the Freeloader”
6. Slattery’s People – portrait of Richard Crenna
7. Gilligan’s Island – painting of the cast of Gilligan’s Island
8. National Football League – painting of 3 New York Giants football players
9. Fanfare – portrait of Al Hirt
These paintings (and related sketches) were first exhibited in Beverly Hills at the May 1965 annual meeting of CBS-TV station managers. The exhibition then moved to New York and then toured around the country. Working with Eric Smallwood, President of the Apex Marketing Group, Inc., we have been able to locate Chadbourn’s paintings of Walter Cronkite, Jackie Gleason, Raymond Burr and Red Skelton. We are still looking for the whereabouts of the paintings of Hedda Hopper, Richard Crenna, Gilligan’s Island, Al Hirt and the 3 NY Giants players. In addition, we are looking for any sketches Chadbourn made as studies for any of these paintings. If you have any information about the location of any of these missing paintings or sketches or about this series of paintings in general, please contact us.
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